Biography
Academy Award-nominated, Emmy Award-winning Producer/Director Susan Todd has been making cutting-edge, natural history and social impact films for the past three decades. She co-founded Archipelago Films in 1991, with partner Andrew Young, to make films and media that entertain and inspire through high-quality, visual storytelling. With a well-established track record of producing, directing, and writing both documentary and fiction films, for television and theatrical release, Archipelago Films is now producing award-winning 3D Giant Screen/IMAX films.
Wings Over Water, their acclaimed 3D Giant Screen IMAX film,, narrated by actor, Michael Keaton, is in theaters now. Wings Over Water tells the story of the epic journeys of three amazing bird families - the Sandhill Crane, the Yellow Warbler and the Mallard Duck - with extraordinary footage of the triumphs and challenges of these remarkable creatures as they soar across mountains, deserts, cities and forests on their way home to the prairie wetlands to raise their young. Wings Over Water won the top industry awards in 2022, including "Best Film Short Subject," "Best Cinematography," "Best Visual Effects," "Best Film Lifelong Learning."
Backyard Wilderness, their last 3D Giant Screen/IMAX film, won the top industry awards in 2018, including "Best Film Short Subject", "Best Cinematography", "Best Film Lifelong Learning" as well as numerous other accolades including "Best Children's Film" from the International Wildlife Film Festival. Pushing the boundaries of storytelling and technology, Backyard Wilderness combines blue chip natural history techniques to reveal the amazing wildlife and plants that live around a typical suburban home, along with a dramatic narrative arc about a human family, obsessed with its digital screens. The film has premiered in over 50 IMAX and Giant Screen theaters so far, throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, China, South America and the Middle East. It will be released on Netflix in 2024.
Beyond nature, Todd and Young's credits include their Academy Award-nominated Children of Fate, which revisits a family in Sicily filmed by Young's father, director Robert M. Young in 1961. The film received the Grand Jury Prize and the Cinematography Award at the Sundance Film Festival, top awards at many international festivals, played theatrically in over 30 US cities, and had its television premiere on HBO/Cinemax. Other Archipelago award-winning films include It Ain't Love; about dating violence in teenagers, Lives in Hazard; which profiles gang members in East LA and was introduced by President Clinton on NBC, and Americanos, featuring the contributions of Latinos like Carlos Santana and Tito Puente to the culture of the United States, Executive Produced by Edward James Olmos and broadcast on HBO.
Within the realm of natural history filmmaking, Todd and Young have made television programs and films around the globe that capture some of the most unique and endangered animals, cultures and habitats. Some of these include their award-winning documentary, Madagascar: A World Apart, for the PBS series The Living Edens, many permanent Wildlife Conservation Society/Bronx Zoo film exhibits, such as Congo Gorilla Forest, Tiger Mountain, and Madagascar, and extensive work for the BBC and the World Wildlife Fund.
Todd was born in California and grew up in Cincinnati, where she spent hours playing in her backyard creek, collecting salamanders and riding horses in the nearby stable. In high school, Todd won the "Best Actress in Ohio" at the state One-Act Play Festival. Her Father is a retired family physician, who had dreams of being a herpetologist and her mother is a former tennis pro who has produced community theater. Her grandmother, Margaret, taught her about plants and helped her start a rock collection which has inspired a life-long love of nature and science.
While a student at Harvard University, Todd acted in many plays and in the Harvard-Radcliffe Summer Theater. Her passion for drama and theater led her to study filmmaking with Alfred Guzzetti, Ed Pincus and Robert Gardner. She took a year off college and traveled through East Africa, first working on a research project studying black rhinoceros thermoregulation and then in Meru National Park in Kenya, doing vegetation surveys to determine whether the park could sustain its elephant population. Further travel through Sudan and Egypt helped to confirm Todd's goal to spend her life understanding and communicating the stories of people and animals through media.
After working in New York at Lionheart Television and ABC News, Todd went to graduate school to get her masters at Columbia University's School of Journalism. Shortly after graduating, she began work at WNET public television. When a show Todd produced on the Nature of Love was broadcast on Valentine's Day, Young proposed after the credits, and they have enjoyed collaborating on films at Archipelago ever since.
